Pain and Suffering in Literary Works Essay Example

Introduction

Works of literature portray various activities that go on in the community. Some of them may use exaggerated explanations while others prefer non-fictional motifs in their plot. In most of the texts, some themes appear to be repeated, and they show the feelings of the characters involved in the narratives. Among these common themes are pain and suffering. It is a theme that shows the distress that the character is going through in any written text. The theme is common in many of the previously studied essays. This paper is a general analysis of the theme in three of the works that have already been covered. The three texts that are explained are; Barn Burning by William Faulkner, The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, and The Things They Carried by Tim O' Brien.

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The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe

The narrative is a gothic text that has involvement in the death of individuals and some of the main characters in the play. To begin with, the play has a main character who is a man who has been condemned. He is also the narrator of the story. He has a wife and a cat named Pluto. The cat is fond of the narrator at the beginning of the narration. However, the man changes and starts abusing alcohol. He then becomes addicted and does not seem to have a proper mindset upon intoxication to the drug. One day, he comes home drunk and believes that the cat has started avoiding him. In his efforts to try and grab the cat, it bites him in its panicky efforts to escape. Infuriated by the act, the man takes out a penknife from his pocket and pulls out the eye of the cat. This marks a total change of attitude that the cat had for its master. It flees upon hearing his voice and does not want to come anywhere near him. At first, the narrator is remorseful and sorry for what he had done to the cat, but this feeling only lasts a short time. It is replaced by anger and irritation. He comes home on after another drinking spree and hangs the cat in his courtyard leading to its death. That night, the house that they live in catches fire. The man and his wife and servant flee, but he returns later to find an image of the cat with a rope on its neck. At first, the man is disturbed by the image on the wall, but he later deciphers that someone had thrown the dead cat in the house to inform him of the fire. He then finds a cat that was similar to Pluto in a, and he takes it home. The cat has a lot of similarity to Pluto such that he remembers his old cat. When the cat starts forming a gallows shape on its chest, he decides to kill it, but his wife stops him. In the process, he ends up killing his wife. He hides her body in a wall, and the cat disappears. The police come to investigate the disappearance of the lady, but on the first occasion do no find any. On the second time, they hear a wail from the cellar where he had taken them to inspect. They see the body of the woman and the cat on the rotting head.

Pain and suffering is seen on several occasions throughout the plot. First, when the cat bites the narrator when he comes home drunk. On the second instance, the narrative shows pain and suffering when the man pulls out the cat's eye in anger. Furthermore, the man suffers as a result of his action that was driven by anger. He is covered by guilt which leads to emotional suffering. It is this suffering that makes him get rid of the cat by hanging it. Pain and suffering are also noted when the house where they live catches fire. It meant that most of their property was destroyed and only a wall that had the image of the cat survived. Emotional torment is also seen when the new cat starts developing a picture of the gallows on its chest. It makes the man want to get rid of the cat as it reminds him of what he had done to Pluto. The theme is evident when the man kills his wife when she tries to rescue the cat. It is painful that she is killed with an ax. The narrator also undergoes pain and suffering due to the guilt of killing and the disappearance of the cat. In the end, the man is reminded of all the wrongs he had committed after the body of his wife is found (Stark, 2004).

Barn Burning by William Faulkner

Barn Burning is a story of a relationship between a father and his son. It begins in a court proceeding where the father - Abner is accused of burning down a barn that belonged to Mr. Harris. In the court, the boy named Sarty is asked to testify against his father, but he refuses. The judge tells the father to leave the town, and Abner claims that he was already planning on doing so. After the court session, Sarty is apprehended by a boy who calls him barn burner and pushes him to the ground, but his father intervenes on his behalf and tells him to go to the Wagon. They leave the place on that day, and his father questions Sarty if he would have testified against him in the court. The theme of suffering is seen when he strikes his son after he does not answer the question. He then advised him that he should always defend his blood or else he will have no blood to stick to him. They move to a plantation, and again Abner's pride is seen when he walks into the farmhouse with a pile of manure on his feet despite the request by the servant that he wipes his feet. Here the suffering of the servant is evident. On the return of Major DeSpain, Abner is asked to clean the rug, but he goes ahead and destroys the rug which leads to a case with the major. That evening after the case was decided that Abner would pay for the rug using corn, he decides to burn the barn of Major DeSpain. Sarty runs away, but his father goes ahead with his plan. From a distance, Sarty hears gunshots which meant that most probably his father had been shot. The theme of suffering is also seen in the scene as Sarty cries and tries to comfort himself that at least his father had the courage and even fought in the war. This is even though his father had not enrolled in the war as a soldier. The pain of losing his father was too much for Sarty such that he sleeps at that spot and the following morning, he goes in the woods and promises himself never to go back home. The moment had changed his life, and it was impossible for him to turn back (Faulkner, 1977).

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The narrative explains the escapades of the soldiers who are on the battlefield. There are several instances when the theme of pain and suffering are seen. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is suffering from the fact that he loves a girl who studies in Mount Sebastian College but the lady does not love him. She sends him letters that are addressed under her name, but he knows better than fill his head with false hopes that she loves him. It is the love that he has for her that makes him wonder if she is a virgin. He feels pity for himself since she belongs to another word different from his, a thought that makes him cry. It is painful to love and not be loved back, and in the end, he burns the photos and the letters that he used to carry around as a sign of disappointment and hopelessness. He is also seen to blame himself after the shooting of Ted Lavender since he was the leader of the troops.

In another instant, the life of the soldiers is full of pain and suffering. Ted Lavender, for example, carries tranquilizers due to the fear that he has. Others take to Marijuana abuse due to the pain of losing friends and comrades in the battle. It is especially painful when some of the comrades try to explain the loss of Lavender who was at one time zipping up his, and in the next second, he was dead. Some of them also use humor to cope with the loss by saying that he probably never felt any of the bullet due to his constant use of tranquilizers. The methods are all aimed at reducing the suffering that the soldiers undergo in the war. In addition to that, the task to search the tunnels before blowing them up. Some of them are especially scared by the task, but they have no alternative but to do it (O'Brien, 2009).

Conclusion

Pain and suffering are evident in all the communities. It motivates the works of art which use different methods to express it. Excellent examples are listed above and discussed in three narratives as covered in the classroom. The analysis expresses many of the incidences in different works which have expressed it.

References

Faulkner, W. (1977). Barn Burning. United States Information Agency, Television and Film Service.

O'Brien, T. (2009). The things they carried. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Stark, Joseph. "Motive and Meaning: The Mystery of the Will in Poe's "the Black Cat"." The Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 2, 2004, pp. 255-263. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/213524851?accountid=10008.